Loring Park is part of an Initiative called Central Cities Neighborhood Partnership which operates a Restorative Justice Program. Our focus is to reduce livability crimes in and around the downtown neighborhoods, as well as to hold accountable to the community those who break the law, ensuring consequences for actions, while looking at ways with the Offender to prevent the action to occur again.
We are distressed by the proposed City Budget. Please read the following news alert and call your Councilmember, new Councilmembers and new elected leadership. This is THE topic which is coming up over and over again on this Issues List....Let's get some action and accountability from our elected leadership. If they say "prosecution of livability crimes is a priority"...then there needs to be the resources to get it done or we keep seeing the same revolving door over and over and over and no reduction of livability crimes which plague our inner city neighborhoods. Please help!! Thanks. Jana L. Metge/Citizens for a Loring Park Community Action Alert--Cutbacks to City Attorney's 2002 budget In the Mayor's proposed 2002 budget, the City Attorney's Office (CAO) has been directed to cut $200,000 from the approximately $4 milllion allocated to the Criminal Division in 2001. This, coupled with a likely decrease in federal funding, will greatly limit the CAO's ability to aggressively prosecute misdemeanor crimes in Minneapolis. The following obstacles to prosecution of livability crimes were laid out by the CAO in their Priorities document found on the City's website (www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/citywork/Priorities_2002/index.html): --Overwhelming caseload: "in 2000, 52,429 cases were handled by 33.5 FTE positions, an average of 1565 cases per position. This is in sharp contrast to the American Bar Association (and State) standard for public defenders of 400 misdemeanor cases per attorney per year." The only recent addition to Criminal Division staff were made possible by federal funding, not increased city funding. --Unstable long-term funding: At the present the CAO's Criminal Division budget relies heavily on funding from federal law enforcement block grants. According to the CAO "Federal funds...are not a reliable long-term source of funding...Without an alternative funding source, the City would not have adequuate prosecution resources to continue its aggressive prosecution of livability crimes." The federal grant is also tied to part I violent crime rates, which are typically felony charges prosecuted by the County Attorney, not the Minneapolis CAO. While Part I offenses have dropped, Part II livability crimes have continued unabated. --Inadequate information systems: "Because of the Criminal Division's inadequate information system, a comprehensive evaluation in so possible" with regards to case management. This means that the CAO cannot evaluate its progress on case processing time and is not able to coordinate its information systems with other criminal justice system partnersh, i.e. Katie's Law on tracking sex offenders statewide. ACTION STEPS; A. Phone Calls and Letters - Phone calls and letters to the Mayor and city council members are urgently needed by November 21 voicing neighborhood concerns about cutbacks to the CAO's budget. Please urge city leaders to restore full funding to the CAO's budget and locate resources for its information systems because: --Misdemeanor level crimes continue to erode neighborhood livability. --The effective prosecution of livability crimes should be a core city service and needs stable, ongoing funding support from the city, it is the city's responsibility to ensure that laws are enforced and that offenders are held accountable. --The CAO is already understaffed, budget cutbacks will only further limit their ability to effectively prosecute their caseload. --This budget cut will negatively impact the CAO's ability to work with community-based programs and could eliminate both the support staff for neighborhood restorative justice programs and the CAO's Community Mediator, who works with victims of crimes. B. Public testimony After the Mayor's full budget is made public on Thursday, November 8 at 1:00 p.m., there will be public hearings on the various department's allocations. Please attend the public hearing on the City's budget on December 10 at 5:00 p.m. in Room 132 at City Hall and urge the City Council members who will be reviewing the budget's provisions to restore full funding for the City Attorney's budget. Please let us know about any responses you get from City Leaders on this issue. Prepared by: Central Cities Neighborhood Partnership/Restorative Justice Program. Contact: Mike Rollin at 612-871-8100. _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
